Mary arrived last night! Well early morning I guess. Poor Mayowa had to wait like four hours because her flight was delayed and then the customs line was very long. This was objectively less inconvenient for Haleigh who could stay in her bed until Mary arrived but she still had to be awake until 1:30. Aayush, to his credit, stayed up until midnight. Mayowa wanted to stay with Aayush for the night because he lives an hour away, but Haleigh didn’t want to wake Aayush up (we know, so nice of her). We offered to pay for a room for Mayowa, but he reassured us he had another place nearby to sleep and we’ll reimburse him for transportation costs, with a little extra tip.

After a long night, Aayush and Haleigh were up bright and early, hoping to get a phone interview in with a responder before heading off to today’s training. We ended up being the first ones there before 7:30 am, meaning we were locked out until Mary (from HEI) came to save us. Before we could hit our stride with the interviews though, it was time to go. Haleigh and Chika, resourceful as they are, used our commute to knock out 3 interviews in the backseat of the Uber 👏🏽.

The DEBIT trial trainings today were incredibly smooth, feels like we are starting get the hang of our process. We were blown away with the teaching abilities of our TOTs and their efforts led to strong improvement from pre to post test! One of them is even a new family medicine doctor so definitely more qualified to do this than us! After everyone received their vests and first aid kits we took pictures outside, and moments later Chika hit Haleigh with an absolute bombshell - asking her out of the blue if there was something wrong with her skin. Haleigh took the comment in stride while Aayush tried to contain himself. On the way back, HEI Mary had some interesting one liners to share. She told Aayush he looks like an actor, coming off the back of a discussion where both her and Chika demonstrated an impressive amount of Bollywood knowledge. She also saw some Koreans walking in the street and told Aayush they were his brothers, which we haven’t totally been able to figure out what that means just yet.

After we got back, we linked up with LFR Mary and walked around the main road near our hotel. Mary must be much more adventurous than us because the first thing she wanted to do was go outside, while Haleigh and Aayush have walked down a single street in the entire 9 days we’ve been here. We learned from Mary about the incredible summer she has been having, which has included being face to face with Drake! She is also keen to get some fresh fruit which we will be attempting to do tomorrow. Haleigh valiantly tried to get some money from an ATM but was denied unfortunately. Along the way, Aayush saw a carrot muffin that he was super eager to try, though we left the shop at first to look for other options. On our way back we ended up stopping at the same shop where Aayush got to order his long awaited muffin, while Haleigh grabbed a marble cake and Mary indulged on some cotton candy ice cream. Much to his horror, Aayush’s muffin tasted “like sand.” This only enlivened the experience for Haleigh and Mary who were already quite enjoying their desserts.

Back at the hotel, Aayush’s laundry was delivered, though he is unsure about the price and is nervous because Haleigh’s was $21. Tomorrow will be Mary’s first day at the office which we’ll be sure to detail along with our hospital visits! Also, Aayush won against Haleigh in the crossword again (5-2 but who’s counting?), inching ever closer to his complementary London airport pastry (he’s been googling the most expensive items already).

Let’s all congratulate Aayush for writing most of the body text of the blog today! Direct quote to Haleigh, “honestly it’s very hard to be funny, you do a great job, major respect,”which she will be reminding him of daily now.

Locked out, featuring Haleigh’s daily meal of trail mix that sustains her until “lunch” at 4:30 pm

Yet another day of Haleigh’s accent being too American and Aayush being forced to do our responder interviews until that doesn’t work either and Chika graciously takes over

Aayush was featured on Chika’s what’s app status, and just rubbing his height into both of their faces

Aayush strategically sitting up front so he doesn’t have to help with phone calls but at least he got a nice picture out of it

We’re running out of captions for simulation assessment posts but for some reason keep deciding to include pictures

The TOTs are so self-sufficient!

(In back) Aayush pacing from nerves for his grand finale speech in front of all the trainees. Jk that’s too much responsibility for him (Chika would agree), Paschall was the one giving the speech